256 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
256 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
---
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stage: Plan
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group: Certify
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info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#designated-technical-writers
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---
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# Service Desk
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> - [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/149) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 9.1.
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> - [Moved](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/214839) to [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) in 13.0.
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> - [Moved](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/215364) to [GitLab Core](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) in 13.2.
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## Overview
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Service Desk is a module that allows your team to connect directly
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with any external party through email right inside of GitLab; no external tools required.
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An ongoing conversation right where your software is built ensures that user feedback ends
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up directly where it's needed, helping you build the right features to solve your users'
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real problems.
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With Service Desk, you can provide efficient email support to your customers, who can now
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email you bug reports, feature requests, or general feedback that will all end up in your
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GitLab project as new issues. In turn, your team can respond straight from the project.
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As Service Desk is built right into GitLab itself, the complexity and inefficiencies
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of multiple tools and external integrations are eliminated, significantly shortening
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the cycle time from feedback to software update.
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For an overview, check the video demonstration on [GitLab Service Desk](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/05/09/demo-service-desk/).
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## Use cases
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For instance, let's assume you develop a game for iOS or Android.
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The codebase is hosted in your GitLab instance, built and deployed
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with GitLab CI/CD.
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Here's how Service Desk will work for you:
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1. You provide a project-specific email address to your paying customers, who can email you directly
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from within the app.
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1. Each email they send creates an issue in the appropriate project.
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1. Your team members navigate to the Service Desk issue tracker, where they can see new support
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requests and respond inside associated issues.
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1. Your team communicates back and forth with the customer to understand the request.
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1. Your team starts working on implementing code to solve your customer's problem.
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1. When your team finishes the implementation, whereupon the merge request is merged and the issue
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is closed automatically.
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1. The customer will have been attended successfully via email, without having real access to your
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GitLab instance.
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1. Your team saved time by not having to leave GitLab (or setup any integrations) to follow up with
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your customer.
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## How it works
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GitLab Service Desk is a simple way to allow people to create issues in your
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GitLab instance without needing their own user account.
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It provides a unique email address for end users to create issues in a project,
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and replies can be sent either through the GitLab interface or by email. End
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users will only see the thread through email.
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## Configuring Service Desk
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NOTE: **Note:**
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Service Desk is enabled on GitLab.com.
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You can skip step 1 below; you only need to enable it per project.
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If you have project maintainer access you have the option to set up Service Desk.
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Follow these steps to do so:
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1. [Set up incoming email](../../administration/incoming_email.md#set-it-up) for the GitLab instance.
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- We recommend using [email sub-addressing](../../administration/incoming_email.md#email-sub-addressing),
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but in GitLab 11.7 and later you can also use [catch-all mailboxes](../../administration/incoming_email.md#catch-all-mailbox).
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1. Navigate to your project's **Settings > General** and locate the **Service Desk** section.
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1. Enable the **Activate Service Desk** toggle. This reveals a unique email address to email issues
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to the project. These issues will be [confidential](issues/confidential_issues.md), so they will
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only be visible to project members. Note that in GitLab 11.7, we updated the generated email
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address's format. The older format is still supported, however, allowing existing aliases or
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contacts to continue working.
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DANGER: **Danger:**
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This email address can be used by anyone to create an issue on this project, whether or not they
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have access to your GitLab instance. We recommend **putting this behind an alias** so it can be
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changed if needed, and **[enabling Akismet](../../integration/akismet.md)** on your GitLab
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instance to add spam checking to this service. Unblocked email spam would result in many spam
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issues being created.
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If you have [templates](description_templates.md) in your repository, you can optionally select
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one from the selector menu to append it to all Service Desk issues.
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Service Desk is now enabled for this project! You should be able to access it from your project
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navigation's **Issues** menu.
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### Using customized email templates
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> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/2460) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 12.7.
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When a user submits a new issue using Service Desk, or when a new note is created on a Service Desk issue, an email is sent to the author.
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The body of these email messages can customized by using templates. To create a new customized template,
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create a new Markdown (`.md`) file inside the `.gitlab/service_desk_templates/`
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directory in your repository. Commit and push to your default branch.
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#### Thank you email
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The **Thank you email** is the email sent to a user after they submit an issue.
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The file name of the template has to be `thank_you.md`.
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You can use `%{ISSUE_ID}` placeholder which will be replaced by an issue IID in the email and
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`%{ISSUE_PATH}` placeholder which will be replaced by project path and the issue IID.
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As the Service Desk issues are created as confidential (only project members can see them)
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the response email does not provide the issue link.
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#### New note email
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The **New note email** is the email sent to a user when the issue they submitted has a new comment.
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The file name of the template has to be `new_note.md`.
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You can use `%{ISSUE_ID}` placeholder which will be replaced by an issue IID
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in the email, `%{ISSUE_PATH}` placeholder which will be replaced by
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project path and the issue IID and `%{NOTE_TEXT}` placeholder which will be replaced by the note text.
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### Using custom email display name
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> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/7529) in GitLab 12.8.
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You can customize the email display name. Emails sent from Service Desk will have
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this name in the `From` header. The default display name is `GitLab Support Bot`.
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### Using custom email address
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> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/2201) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 13.0.
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NOTE: **Note:**
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This feature is disabled by default. For steps to enable it, see [Enable custom email address](#enable-custom-email-address).
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If the `service_desk_email` feature flag is enabled in your configuration,
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then it's possible to create Service Desk issues by sending emails to the
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custom Service Desk email address, which should have the following format:
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`project_contact+%{key}@example.com`.
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The `%{key}` part is used to find the project where the issue should be created. The
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`%{key}` part combines the path to the project and configurable project name suffix:
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`<project_full_path>-<project_name_suffix>`.
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You can set the project name suffix in your project's Service Desk settings.
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It can contain only lowercase letters (`a-z`), numbers (`0-9`), or underscores (`_`).
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You can add the following snippets to your configuration.
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Example for installations from source:
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```yaml
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service_desk_email:
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enabled: true
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address: "project_contact+%{key}@example.com"
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user: "project_support@example.com"
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password: "[REDACTED]"
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host: "imap.gmail.com"
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port: 993
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ssl: true
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start_tls: false
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log_path: "log/mailroom.log"
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mailbox: "inbox"
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idle_timeout: 60
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expunge_deleted: true
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```
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Example for Omnibus GitLab installations:
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```ruby
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_enabled'] = true
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_address'] = "project_contact+%{key}@gmail.com"
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_email'] = "project_support@gmail.com"
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_password'] = "[REDACTED]"
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_mailbox_name'] = "inbox"
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_idle_timeout'] = 60
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_log_file'] = "/var/log/gitlab/mailroom/mail_room_json.log"
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_host'] = "imap.gmail.com"
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_port'] = 993
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_ssl'] = true
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gitlab_rails['service_desk_email_start_tls'] = false
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```
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In this case, suppose the `mygroup/myproject` project Service Desk settings has the project name
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suffix set to `support`, and a user sends an email to `project_contact+mygroup-myproject-support@example.com`.
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As a result, a new Service Desk issue is created from this email in the `mygroup/myproject` project.
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#### Enable custom email address
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This feature comes with the `service_desk_custom_address` feature flag disabled by default.
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To turn on the feature, ask a GitLab administrator with Rails console access to run the following
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command:
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```ruby
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Feature.enable(:service_desk_custom_address)
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```
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The configuration options are the same as for configuring
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[incoming email](../../administration/incoming_email.md#set-it-up).
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## Using Service Desk
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### As an end user (issue creator)
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To create a Service Desk issue, an end user does not need to know anything about
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the GitLab instance. They just send an email to the address they are given, and
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receive an email back confirming receipt:
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This also gives the end user an option to unsubscribe.
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If they don't choose to unsubscribe, then any new comments added to the issue
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will be sent as emails:
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And any responses they send will be displayed in the issue itself.
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### As a responder to the issue
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For responders to the issue, everything works as usual. They will see a familiar looking
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issue tracker, where they can see issues created via customer support requests and
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filter and interact with them just like other GitLab issues.
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Messages from the end user will show as coming from the special Support Bot user, but apart from that,
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you can read and write comments as you normally do:
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Note that:
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- The project's visibility (private, internal, public) does not affect Service Desk.
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- The path to the project, including its group or namespace, will be shown on emails.
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### Support Bot user
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Behind the scenes, Service Desk works by the special Support Bot user creating issues. This user
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does not count toward the license limit count.
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